Oxidation of cumene oxidation by-products (such as dimethylbenzene alcohol and aldehydes) with hydrogen peroxide to cumene hydroperoxide and organic acids, respectively, appears to achieve an advantage over conventional approaches. However, the presence of cumene hydroperoxide predetermines certain difficulties in conducting the oxidation with such a strong oxidizer as hydrogen peroxide—as a result, it is necessary to solve three absolutely different problems in order to achieve advantageous process output:                to conduct the oxidation with hydrogen peroxide in such a manner as to eliminate cumene dihydroperoxide formation from cumene hydroperoxide, while simultaneously achieving maximum aldehyde and dimethylbenzene alcohol conversion;        to conduct the oxidation by hydrogen peroxide in such a manner as to eliminate cumene hydroperoxide decomposition to phenol and acetone—representing an important safety issue; and        to conduct the oxidation by hydrogen peroxide in such a manner that hydrogen peroxide remains stable and is spent preferentially for dimethylbenzene alcohol and aldehyde oxidation—representing an important economical issue.        
The reaction of alcohol oxidation with hydrogen peroxide itself is a well-known chemical reaction. For example, Japanese Patent Application 55-53265 teaches the oxidation of dimethylbenzene alcohol with hydrogen peroxide in presence of aromatic hydrocarbons followed by azeotropic distillation of water formed from the hydrogen peroxide by adding benzene, which forms an azeotrope with water.
However, dimethylbenzene alcohol recovery from cumene oxidation products is almost an intractable problem. That is the reason why most researchers of various phenol processes did their best to find ways of selective conversion of dimethylbenzene alcohol from cumene oxidation stage to alpha-methylstyrene at an acidic cumene hydroperoxide cleavage stage. This has been done with some measure of success. For example, teachings of the U.S. Pat. No. 6,057,483 result in alpha-methylstyrene yield of 89.7% mole, the yield being verified in the course of said process operation at several commercial units.
In spite of high alpha-methylstyrene yield achieved in the conventional cumene process, cumene consumption per 1 ton of phenol, which characterizes total selectivity of the process, is approximately 1310-1340 kg/t. Therefore, the losses of initial cumene feed are within the range of 33-63 kg/t phenol. In addition, the problem of acetone quality resulting from presence of aldehydes almost inseparable from acetone still remains unresolved.
It would thus be desirable to provide an improved highly selective process for producing phenol and acetone in a safe and economical manner. It would also be desirable to provide an improved process that results in high quality final products. It would further be desirable to provide an improved process of greater process productivity that excludes by-products formation at the cleavage stage and the cleavage products fractionation stage.